


Hair Locks and Burned hands

by LadyBee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Day 3, F/M, Fluff, Jon Snow is King in the North, Jon Snow is very upset about a new fashion tendency in court, Jonrya Week 2020, Touch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22430224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBee/pseuds/LadyBee
Summary: He loved her hair. Jon couldn’t recall a day in which he hadn’t played with Arya’s locks since she learned to walk. Messing her hair was like a secret they shared. It was their thing.
Relationships: Jon Snow & Arya Stark, Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 104
Collections: Jonrya Week, Jonrya Week: January 2020





	Hair Locks and Burned hands

He had lost count of how many times he had wished for something so ordinary. It was a simple gesture; something banal and irrelevant meant only to display a playful sort of affection. Jon wondered when it had changed to something else. When exactly the idea of stroking Arya’s hair went from a minor gesture of fondness to some sort of obsession?

Jon couldn’t understand it fully but recognized the Wall might have affected him in this. He wasn’t a cold man as people used to say. Maybe he was colder than average but not indifferent or immune to basic human needs. He had missed home like anyone else and the gods knew he had nearly crossed the limits of his vows more than once, until he reached such a dark and freezing place inside of him that Jon had no option but break all the promises that he made to his black brothers.

He died abandoned in a night that felt endless and frozen. It was lonely, quiet and as easy as falling asleep after a wearisome day. It was better than staying alive and deal with the emptiness of his life and the decisions that kept breaking him bit by bit until there was nothing left.

If someone inquired him why he did what he did, Jon would say it was because he had given up fighting the tides. Death was better than anything the Wall had to offer him, but the truth was that he surrendered his life for the promise of warmth. The promise of finding home again within two slender arms and a mane of dark brown hair.

Jon gave up his life for a chance of caressing her hair again and in his mind that gesture was so pure and full of love that it almost broke his heart just to think about it. Why did they have to bring him back to life? Why a gesture so cherished by him suddenly felt ugly and indecent?

Arya was mostly unaware of his obsession. She probably just thought it to be a thing siblings did, but neither Bran nor Rickon ever acted like that. They were close as siblings should be; with all the quarrels and bickering, but still touching had ne'er been something the Starks habitually did.

Jon could recall Lady Stark hugging and kissing her children and Ned petting their shoulders as a sign of empathy, encouragement or pity. The girls would get a kiss on their foreheads in rare occasions and that was the limit of it, but Jon and Arya had never been particularly good in respecting limits, nor did they fit the family most of the time.

He loved her hair. Jon couldn’t recall a day in which he hadn’t played with Arya’s locks since she learned to walk. Messing her hair was like a secret they shared. It was their thing.

Lord Stark too had loved Lady Stark’s hair for all that Jon remembered. Catelyn Stark was a proper lady and always very discreet about her marriage, but Jon had seen Lord Stark playing with a lock of her splendid hair and whispering something to her ear that made his wife blush.

Now that Jon was older and a bit more experienced he understood how intimate that gesture was. To reach for a woman’s hair was an invasion of her space and demanded a great deal of trust. Men talked about their ladies’ hair in songs and carried locks with them as an amulet for battle. Most of the time, to touch a lady’s hair was a gesture restricted to the intimacy of the bed chamber.

It was no longer proper for him to feel Arya’s hair in his hand or to play with it as he loved to do. The eyes of the North were set on him and a King owned Lord Stark’s daughter all the honors and respect granted to a princess. There would be talking if he ignored the protocol, but as days passed Jon felt more and more inclined to throw protocol through the window and do what he wanted.

With winter upon them, the women adopted a new sort of fashion. They started to wear caps and veils to cover their heads and ears, leaving only their faces exposed. Noble women would wear it along with a fancy headpiece or bonnet to mark their status and after a while even Arya started to wear it.

“It’s practical and helps me to keep warm.” She insisted, and Jon had no arguments against that. He wouldn’t suggest her to neglect her comfort for the sake of his twisted fantasies.

He hated that thing, though; to the point of considering to banish it from the North by royal decree.

Perhaps it was winter what was truly breaking him. With the days getting colder, Jon felt exactly as if he was still at the Wall. He was alienated from everything that evoked in him a sense of warmth, safety and protection, therefore, he craved for Arya’s presence like he craved for the days of summer.

Sometimes he couldn’t sleep at night, and his feet would inevitably take him to Arya’s door. For a while he fought the urge of entering the room as ask for her company. More than once he thought about asking for a bit of space in her bed so he could sleep feeling her arms around him.

Bedding Arya wasn’t even the first thing that came to his mind in those nights. Jon would settle for the sound of her breath and touching her hair for as long as he wanted. In his dream Arya always kissed him lazily and his hand held her by the hair as he deepened the kiss.

He wished he had the courage of the Targaryens to have her as his bride. Not even the crown granted him that kind of power, but he still dreamed of a way out of that feeling. Eventually, when the loneliness became excruciating, Jon opened the door of her room.

He found Arya sleeping peacefully with her hair lose all around her head forming a dark halo. For a while Jon just remained there, quietly observing her and wishing she was dreaming of him.

“You shouldn’t watch people as they sleep. It makes you creepy.” Her voice said languidly. Jon didn’t move or made a sound for a while. His heart was beating fast as Arya opened her eyes. “You couldn’t sleep?” Jon simply nod to that.

“Sleeping became an impossible task these days.” Jon explained. “I was cold too. I don’t like being cold.”

“Come here” Arya said as she moved to give Jon a share of her bed. “You can sleep here tonight and keep my feet warm.”

Jon didn’t make her wait. He had to refrain himself from running to her like a little boy runs to his mother’s bad after a nightmare.

Her bed was soft and soothing, with a gentle warmth to it. Once he laid by her side, Arya touched the scar on his face and Jon suddenly felt embarrassed and self-aware. He wondered if she thought that scar disgusting or if she thought him to be ugly. Instead of repelling him, Arya kissed his cheek and ran her fingers though his hair.

Jon recognized it as an invitation for him to do the same. His hand dug in the dark mane of her hair. Arya narrowed her eyes and an odd sound came out of her throat; something like a gentle purr.

Her hair, her warmth, her smell...All those things were designed to keep him sane and human. She was the only one standing between him and darkness. Jon still felt disgusted by his own feelings for Arya and how they had change along the years.

He loved her with an overwhelming intensity, with madness and despair. Yet, being loved by her felt like bliss, like paradise.

Arya touched the tip of his nose with hers as she tried to find a comfortable position. Her smell numbed his senses like a potent drug, like those potions from Ashai.

She took his burned hand into hers and kissed it. The freezing weather made his fingers stiff and it was hard to flex them to grab a cup, or even to muss her hair. Those ugly and useless chunks of meet and bones; they were an embarrassment.

“You never told me what happened.” Arya said it as a matter of fact. Her untamed and furious curiosity would hardly let him escape that question for long.

“I had the brilliant idea of grabbing a lantern and throw it at a white.” Jon answered with a hint of humor, but still very much uncomfortable about his deformed hand. “A torch would make a better weapon.”

“Does it hurt?” Arya continued as she looked at his hand carefully, like a maester examining an experiment.

“It’s just a nuisance most of the time. Uncomfortable, at worst.” He confessed. “And disgusting to look at.”

“You’ve never been so vain before, nor so dramatic about your looks.” Arya teased him and hug him tighter in an attempt to reassure him. “There’s nothing disgusting about your hands; besides...I have my own ugly scars. Do you think I’m disgusting because of them?”

“You know I don’t.” He said before kissing the top of her head.

“Good.” She said it as if she had one a debate. Jon never thought about winning though. He couldn’t think at all with her body so close and so inviting. Jon couldn’t tell if she was aware or not of his feeling. Most of the time Arya acted just like the little girl he once knew, although Jon could see the steel behind her eyes and the deadly woman she had become.

It was impossible for him to tell if her gesture was deliberated or not, but as her lips brushed his Jon felt the urge to keep her and never let her go.

It all felt like a feverish dream, but he grabbed her hair and kissed her like a man kisses a woman. All the doubts in his mind suddenly silenced. There was only Arya and all that she meant to him. Life and death made flesh.

  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it and reviews are highly appreciated.


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